Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Grew Up… disfigured and unloved. Abandoned as a baby, Quasimodo was taken in by Archdeacon Frollo, who has raised and protected him ever since.
Living... in Paris, but not really part of it. Quasimodo might live in a glittering city full of street performers and gypsies, but he doesn't dare to interact with them. Afraid that he would be shunned for his monstrosity, Quasimodo instead stays within the walls of Notre-Dame Cathedral, safe from the outside world. Still, he does daydream what it'd be like "just to live one day out there."
Profession… bell-ringer. Since Frollo found him, Quasimodo's lived among the bells of Notre-Dame, helping ring them throughout the day. Along with the gargoyles and the walls of the cathedral, the bells are old friends by now.
Interests… living in his imagination. Stuck in Notre-Dame with Frollo as his only other human company, Quasimodo longs for a chance to go down to the city. But until that happens, he's content talking to the gargoyles and recreating the city in miniatures.
Relationship Status… single, and that’s seemingly permanent. Sure, pretty Esmeralda might have saved Quasimodo when he was in trouble, but that doesn't mean anything. After all, as Quasimodo knows too well, his is the "'ugliest face in all of Paris,' remember?"
Challenge… saving Esmeralda. As a gypsy girl, Esmeralda is considered a "pest" by many Parisians – including Frollo, who seems obsessed with punishing the girl for some reason. Quasimodo doesn't believe any of the rumors about her. But if he wants to save Esmeralda, he's going to do something even more difficult first: stand up to Frollo.
Personality… imaginative, kind, and deeply insecure. For all his loyalty and bravery, Quasimodo has never had much faith in himself. Raised to think of himself as a monster, he shies away from any hint of kindness, sure that he doesn't deserve it. Despite this, Quasimodo can be fierce when it comes to defending his friends.
Get to Know him in...
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When Quasi defies the evil Frollo and ventures out to the Festival of Fools, the cruel crowd jeers him. Rescued by fellow outcast the gypsy Esmeralda, Quasi soon finds himself battling to save the people and the city he loves.
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The story and characters in Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame have resonated with succeeding generations since its publication in 1831. It has tempted filmmakers, and most recently animators, who have exploited its dramatic content to good effect but have inevitably lost some of the grays that make the original text so compelling.
From Victor Hugo's flamboyant imagination came Quasimodo, the grotesque bell ringer; La Esmeralda, the sensuous gypsy dancer; and the haunted archdeacon Claude Frollo. Hugo set his epic tale in the Paris of 1482 under Louis XI and meticulously re-created the
day-to-day life of its highest and lowest inhabitants. Written at a time of perennial political upheaval in France, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is the product of an emerging democratic sensibility and prefigures the teeming masterpiece Les Misérables, which Hugo would write thirty years later.
He made the cathedral the centerpiece of the novel and called it Notre-Dame de Paris. (It received its popular English title at the time of its second translation in 1833.) Hugo wrote that his inspiration came from a carving of the word "fatality" in Greek that he had found in the cathedral. The inscription had been eradicated by the time the book was published, and Hugo feared that Notre-Dame's Gothic splendor might soon be lost to the contemporary fad for tearing down old buildings. Notre-Dame has survived as one of the great monuments of Paris, and Hugo's novel is a fitting celebration of it, a popular classic that is proving to be just as enduring.
The Modern Library has played a significant role in American cultural life for the better part of a century. The series was founded in 1917 by the publishers Boni and Liveright and eight years later acquired by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. It provided the foun-dation for their next publishing venture, Random House. The Modern Library has been a staple of the American book trade, providing readers with affordable hard-bound editions of important works of liter-ature and thought. For the Modern Library's seventy-fifth anniversary, Random House redesigned the series, restoring as its emblem the running torchbearer created by Lucian Bernhard in 1925 and refurbishing jackets, bindings, and type, as well as inau-gurating a new program of selecting titles. The Modern Library continues to provide the world's best books, at the best prices.
Jacket paintings: (front) detail from Notre Dame by Paul Lecomte, courtesy of David David Gallery/SuperStock; (spine) Victor Hugo, 1833, by Louis Boulanger of Giraudon/Art Resource, N.Y. -
Hunchback's story revolves around a beautiful gypsy dancer, Esmeralda (Patsy Ruth Miller) and the men in the life. Esmeralda's possessive guardian is Clopin, King of the Beggars (Ernest Torrence). He is willing to barter her to advance his interests and those of his impoverished followers. She loves and is loved in turn by Phoebus de Chateaupers (Norman Kerry) a cavalier of King Louis XI (Tully Marshall). Esmeralda is also the obsessive object of Jehan (Brandon Hurst) the villainous brother of Dom Claudio (Nigel De Brulier) the cathedral's saintly Archdeacon. And she is adored by Quasimodo, the grotesque bellringer of Notre Dame for her kindness to him after an unjust flogging. During a tender moment between the dancer and the soldier, the jealous Jehan stabs Phoebus. Esmeralda is accused of the crime, tortured and sentenced to hang. Workmen from the cathedral stop laboring to enjoy her public execution, the following day, while Quasimodo watches in horror.
